ow, commenced eating her frugal breakfast.

The Countess von Truchsess and the high-chamberlain had retired to the
hearth to partake of the strange and unwonted food. Katharine and Martha
stood at the door, staring admiringly at the lady who was leaning
against the window, and just lifting the stale brown bread to her
mouth. She did not notice that the two were looking at her; she was
gazing thoughtfully at the large bedstead in which she had passed the
night in tears and prayers. Her glance then turned to the piece of bread
which she held in her hand, and from which she had vainly tried to eat.
The bread and the bed reminded her of an hour long past, when she was a
happy queen--an hour when her mental eye descried the future, and the
words of a beautiful and melancholy song aroused in her anxious
forebodings, and seemed to her a prophecy of her own destiny. As she
thought of those golden days, her eyes filled with tears, which rolled
over her cheeks and trickled down on the bread in her hand. "Oh," she
murmured, "now I shall be able to eat it; I am softening it with my
tears!" And to conceal them she averted her head, and looked out at the
forest, whose lofty pines were adorned with snow-wreaths. Her tears
gradually ceased--she drew the large diamond ring from her finger, and,
using the pointed stone as a pen, wrote rapidly on the window-pane.

Old Katharine and Martha stared at her in dismay; the characters
appearing on the glass filled them with astonishment and superstitious
awe, and they thought the handsome lady who knew how to write with a
precious stone might after all be a fairy, who, persecuted by some evil
sorcerer, had fled thither into the dark forest, and was writing some
exorcising words on the window-pane, lest her enemy should pursue and
have power over her.

The lady replaced the ring on her finger, and turned to the young
countess and the high-chamberlain. "Now, I am ready," she said, "let us
set out." She walked to the door, and shaking hands with old Katharine,
thanked her for the hospitable reception she had met with in her
cottage, and then stepped out of the low door for the carriage, at which
the high-chamberlain was awaiting her.

"I beg leave, gracious countess, to take upon myself the functions of
our outrider. The road is broken and full of holes, and as I have a keen
eye, I shall see them in time, and call the attention of the coachman to
them."

The countess thanked him with a kind gl